Persuing Health and Wellness

Healthy Societies, Healthy People

Alexander Segall and Christopher J. Fries

Unique focus. Places the study of health and illness in a whole new context by focusing on the factors that shape health and wellness rather than defining health as the absence of illness and disease and the consumption of health care. Readers will be engaged by the idea that pursuing health and wellness can add years to life and life to years.

Multiple perspectives. No single theory is used in the text to address the complex issue of health in all its dimensions. Given the multidimensional nature of health, Pursuing Health and Wellness considers all the major theoretical paradigms used by sociologists and makes a case for adopting a mixed-methods approach to measure the dimensions of health. Other viewpoints considered are intersectional analysis and the life-course perspectives.

Student-friendly narrative. The text's narrative is written in straightforward, easy-to-understand language, with a goal of providing a student-friendly sociological analysis of engaging current events that relate to the pursuit of health and wellness.

Robust pedagogical program. Tools for readers--e.g., learning objectives; study questions; graphs and tables; and lists of recommended readings, websites, and media sources--enhance comprehension, understanding, and application of knowledge. As well, special topic boxes cover surveys, public awareness campaigns, and other current events that address the pursuit of health and wellness while biography boxes personalize the insights of some of the most renowned scholars of health, medicine, and body studies.

Core and supplementary text. Though it is a core text for sociology of health courses, the unique focus of Pursuing Health and Wellness will also make it a viable supplemental text in interdisciplinary programs such as health studies and health sciences, taught at universities and colleges.

Persuing Health and Wellness

Healthy Societies, Healthy People

Alexander Segall and Christopher J. Fries

Description

This innovative new book unravels many of the prevailing mysteries surrounding the pursuit of health and wellness today. Focusing explicitly on health rather than illness, Persuing Health and Wellness analyzes the way in which health and the conditions necessary for wellness are unequally distributed within society and argues that healthy societies foster healthy people. Organized into three parts, the text examines the sociological foundations of the discipline and health as a social construct before looking at the social determinants of health; the structural and behavioural factors that influence it; and the informal and formal components of the health-care system. Students will learn about the guidelines for measuring health, while considering personal,
professional, and public responsibilities in the quest for good health. Engaging and comprehensive, Pursuing Health and Wellness advocates the creation of healthy societies in which people can engage in the active pursuit of healthy living and is essential reading for all students studying the sociology of health.

Persuing Health and Wellness

Healthy Societies, Healthy People

Alexander Segall and Christopher J. Fries

Table of Contents

Preface and AcknowledgementsPart 1: Understanding Health and Wellness Sociologically1. Introducing Health Sociology2. Applying the Sociological Imagination to Health, Illness, and the Body3. Measuring the Dimensions of HealthPart 2: Exploring the Factors that Shape Health and Wellness4. Making People Healthy: General Determinants of Health and Wellness5. Addressing Sources of Inequality and Health Disparities: Social Class6. Addressing Sources of Inequality and Health Disparities: Gender7. Addressing Sources of Inequality and Health Disparities: Ethnicity and the Life Course8. Unravelling the Mystery of Health: An Intersectional ModelPart 3: Pursuing Health and Wellness9. Discovering the Hidden Depths of Health
Care: Lay Beliefs, Social Support, and Informal Care10. Medicalizing Beings and Bodies: The Link between Population Health and Biomedical Care11. Moving Beyond Biomedicine: Medical Pluralism12. Achieving Healthy FuturesGlossary

Persuing Health and Wellness

Healthy Societies, Healthy People

Alexander Segall and Christopher J. Fries

Author Information

Alexander Segall is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba in Canada. He is a Health Sociologist whose academic career is devoted to the interdisciplinary study of the social dimensions of health and illness, and has been published in a number of scientific journals including major Health Sociology and Aging journals.

Christopher J. Fries is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Manitoba in Canada. He is a sociologist of health, medicine, and the body whose primary research interests are in health lifestyles and behaviour, critical public health, the social determinants of health, and complementary/alternative medicine and medical pluralism, or the existence of multiple systems of health
care practice and belief.

Persuing Health and Wellness

Healthy Societies, Healthy People

Alexander Segall and Christopher J. Fries

Reviews and Awards

"Very readable-the authors do not talk down to students and I appreciate their willingness to make an explicit argument for the students to consider."--Ariel Ducey, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Calgary

"The first section of the book (theoretical approaches and measurements of health and illness) provides a very thorough overview of the field of health sociology. I also like how the theoretical approaches in the first section are re-introduced in later sections as they are applied to understand specific issues in health...The authors do a good job of differentiating between personal and structural explanations of health and illness."--Lisa Strohschein, Associate Professor of Social Structure and Policy, University of Alberta